The Pentagon’s budget request includes a plan to restructure the Air Force’s contract for aerial refueling tankers with Boeing, according to a Reuters report.
The plan would save $1.3 billion in fiscal 2013 and $2.4 billion through fiscal 2017, it said.
Documents from the Pentagon said the change would “reflect the developmental and production plans associated with the newly awarded contract,” Reuters said.
Boeing won the contract, valued at $30 billion, to build 179 tankers to replace the Air Force’s aging fleet last February.
The budget also includes a plan to buy 10 fewer P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance planes from Boeing for the U.S. Navy, Reuters said.
The P-8A is based on a 737 commercial airliner. Spirit AeroSystems builds the plane’s fuselage and other structures.
“Due to changing priorities within the department and funding constraints, the department deemed that it was a manageable risk to reduce P-8A procurement by 10 aircraft from fiscal 2013 to fiscal 2017,” the Pentagon’s comptroller told Reuters.
The Navy had planned to buy 21 P-8As in 2015 and 30 in 2016.
The Navy is replacing its aging P-3 Orion fleet with the new planes. It plans to start using them operationally in 2013.
